Just wanted to weigh in and let you know that the speed bonus of the merc demo is all but unnoticeable. I tested it with my brother. In full merc demo armor we went to the training hall (him in normal armor). When running from one end of the training hall to the other, the speed bonus led to an Avatar length lead for me. Meaning, on my 13" Macbook, my guy was about 1/4-1/2 inch ahead of his. It seems to be (an estimate here) about a 2-3% speed bonus (if even that high).

Anyhow, if you are set on a merc demo i suppose you look @ the merits of merc demo armor+volc helm with a shock UV--has innate ctr med.

I've seen quite a bit of Snarbolax outfits for sale, so I wouldn't put it out of the question to find a mercurial demo suit in a reasonable timeframe if you have the CE/cr to purchase it, but it will be pricey.

Currently I'm saving up for a complete snarbolax coat (fire high, freeze low, curse low) & cap (next good UV I craft). I'm sitting on 5kCE right now (sold a couple good UVs for 1-2kCE each) but I figure that I'll need ~5250CE and 107kcr to craft some shadow armor (crown of the fallen), the ash tail i'll need, the snarbolax stuff, the key, revives, and the levels themselves. So, I'm really close, but most likely I won't go for a couple weeks since I want my brother to go with me and he still hasn't finished his 5* gear.

If you have some friends that are really good at the game (or have shadow lair experience) you could have then drag you through even if you don't have the proper armor/weapons. That'll cut costs significantly for you since you won't need to craft specific gear.

Controlled tests of movement speed increase/decrease suggests the change is about 4-5% per rank, so 8-10% for a full suit of Mercurial (demo or otherwise).

OK, quick reality check: including all recipes, materials, and other crafting costs, a typical 5* item in this game costs around 140k crowns (~2200 CE) at current market prices. You probably paid that much crafting your Mad Bomber, even if you didn't realize it. That's just a rough ballpark figure, but even if Mercurial Demo were a regular armor and didn't require touching shadow lairs, it sounds like your current savings would be enough for about one piece, not a full set.

If you want someone else to craft it and sell it to you, you're looking at a 4k CE unbind cost on top of that. They can maybe amortize the recipes, but they're also probably looking to make a profit, so this will be roughly three times the price of crafting one yourself.

If you really want Mercurial Demo and really don't want to do shadow lairs, that's an expensive but legitimate option. Though you should keep in mind that you could also use that extra money to craft yourself some equipment custom-tailored to the shadow lair, which might make it quite a bit easier for you.

But if you're on a budget and can't currently handle shadow lairs, you should look into other options. Even if the shadow lair armors (or some variant of them) were to show up as a featured auction, they're not going to be cheaper; the Scissor Blades cost a million crowns when they were a featured auction item, which is probably at least double what it would have cost to get someone else to craft you a Leviathan Blade, and around 7 times what it would cost to craft one yourself.

I would think about regular Mercurial armor, which still has a movement bonus and shock resistance; you can pick up a bomb damage bonus from a trinket instead. Volcanic Demo might also be worth considering; it gives fire resistance and bomb charge time reduction.

I think Ironmight Plate and Volcanic Plate also deserve a shout-out, since they give you significantly increased defense at the cost of attack speed--and attack speed doesn't matter for bombs! They might increase your survivability a good deal.